As many of you know, I took this gap year after already starting college which isn’t as common as you’d think. Most of the gals on my squad just graduated high school except for a select few and honestly I love it. I wouldn’t change it at all. I know the Lord had this timed out so perfectly for me. Whenever others heard what I was doing, they looked at me as if I was dropping out of college. Which honestly I see why because it technically is true. So, when I was saying “see you later” to my friends at college last spring, I used to joke (keyword; joke! Don’t worry mom) with them all the time that I was dropping out.
After our month one debrief, we returned home to our base as a squad refreshed, prepared, and expectant to head back to our ministries. Although, my team and I were in for a sweet surprise when we found out our ministry was being changed to working with CRU at the University of Costa Rica. CRU is a pretty common campus ministry that works at different colleges around the world. Walking into it I’m pretty sure we all thought that this ministry switch up was only going to be for the day but when we arrived our new ministry host informed us that we were going to be with him for the next six weeks. Honestly, I didn’t know how to feel because at this point none of us knew what we were walking into.
Let me just fill you in on what a typical week on campus looks like- we arrive every day at 9 am in front of the main part of campus where we pray before we break up into pairs to go out and evangelize all over campus. A majority of every day is spent evangelizing on campus which means we just walk around and ask the Lord who He wants us to talk to then we go talk to students, pray for them, build friendships, and invite them to CRU. On Tuesdays and Thursdays CRU holds “reunions” at noon which is basically what they call club. After reunions, we go to eat our lunch all together with the CRU students to just spend some more time together. Such a small part of this ministry I value so much because I am learning that I’m a big fan of spending time around a table with people. Fridays with CRU is probably my favorite day of the week because we get the opportunity to host an English club for the University students to come practice their English just by playing games and laughing with us.
It’s funny for me to look back at our first week with CRU to now because the first week I was so frustrated with what was happening. While I had a concussion my team got to work a little bit with children’s ministry so, after debrief, I was very expectant and excited to be jumping into that. But God had different plans. Week one of working with CRU I told Bern that God must be up to something crazy because I never once imagined I’d be stepping foot on a college campus at all over these nine months. I mean, after all, I basically dropped out. I remember being so frustrated to be walking around a campus every day because that felt too “normal”. Sometimes it made me miss my WOU family and other times it made me feel like I wasn’t capable of a ministry like this. One of the fears I’ve always had is leading and ministering to people my age. I’ve never felt like I was capable to do something that seemed so terrifying to me.
The Lord is funny in the ways He works and was definitely up to something crazy because six weeks later and I can now confidently say ministering to people my age is something I love. Through working with CRU the Lord has helped me discover a passion I never knew I had. There’s something about this age group that I love so deeply. This is the age where people are figuring out who they truly are. It’s where they begin to adult, they develop habits and build desires of their own. Setting the foundation for what they’re going to do with their life or what they look for in someone and who they are going to marry. So many decisions that can impact their entire life. I sit back and look at the incredible students I’m meeting and just see how Jesus is making a difference in their life. Or if they don’t know Jesus yet I see how He wants to move in their life and I think how much a difference one simple conversation of planting that seed could impact their lives in the long run. Week one I was confused at why I was being placed on a college campus but now I fully understand the why. The Father placed this passion inside me and now is the season where He wanted me to dig that up and find it. This doesn’t make the fear of ministering to people my age any smaller but it does make it that much more of a challenge I want to overcome. I’ve said before that I want to be a woman who abides in the Lord. Stepping out of my comfort zone to have a conversation with a student who may want nothing to do with me is SO worth it if it could impact the Kingdom. That is something I am willing to do any day.
Sometimes I think about the person I was last year walking around Western Oregon and how much the Lord has grown me. Honestly, it becomes easy to beat myself up about it because I feel like I wasted that year there. I would walk to class just to make it there on time and when class was over I’d head straight to where I was going next. I wouldn’t stop to take a look around in where the Lord had me let alone think about if He’d want me to talk to someone. Now, that’s all I think about. Anywhere I go I think with a Kingdom mindset. I look at people and see how God created His child so uniquely. I walk through the market or the mall asking the Lord if there’s someone in my path, or even out of my path, that He wants me to talk to or pray for. It had never occurred to me the ministry that could be done on a college campus and how high the need is for it. So often now it crosses my mind that the broken students I meet on campus could be me, and was me at a time until I was introduced to how much Jesus loves me. Blows my mind every time I think about it. This season of working with CRU has taught me so much more than I ever expected it to. I’m thankful for learning what it looks like to do ministry in a scene that looks so “normal”. The kind of tools I can take back home with me. One day I won’t be a World Racer, I will just be another student walking around campus but I’ll still be the same daughter of the king most high and THAT is something to talk about!! My perspective on how I will choose to walk around a college campus is forever changed. If it means being late to class just to love on someone in the library or even miss an entire class to have a meal with somebody you bet I’ll do it. Kingdom work is SO worth changing my plans for.
Thanks for reading.
Love always, Cass
